Keep It Sacred

When we talk about your power,
we’re referring to the kind of power
Crazy Horse had.

Crazy Horse was born near Rapid Creek
in the mid 1800s. We can’t show you
his picture because no photographs were
ever taken of him. We can’t show you his
handwriting because he never signed a
treaty or any other “official” document.
Crazy Horse wanted only to protect his
people and their way of life, and never
wanted or needed anything from any
other culture but his own. That’s why
we’re fairly sure he would never have
wanted anything to do with commercial
tobacco. Because his people have a powerful,
sacred tobacco tradition all their own.

For tribes throughout North America, the use of traditional tobacco for spiritual, ceremonial, and medicinal purposes goes back thousands of years.

Traditional tobacco among the Northern Plains tribes is not the same as commercial tobacco such as cigarettes or spit tobacco. South Dakota tribes use ċanśaśa which comes from red willow bark.

Among South Dakota tribes, tobacco is an important part of spiritual life. Tobacco helps connect the human experience by providing a means of communicating with the spirit world and the Creator. Traditional tobacco is smoked using ceremonial pipes and the smoke is not inhaled. Pipe design varies among the different tribes, with pipe stems often made of ash or sumac and pipe bowls carved from various types of stone and clay.

Ċanśaśa is used to pray to the 4 directions and the Creator. It also is used in tobacco ties as an offering to the spirits.

Together we are strong.
Together we can fight back against commercial tobacco.You are the power.

Commercial tobacco is not our tobacco. There is nothing traditional or sacred about addiction to commercial tobacco. Yet the tobacco industry spends about $23.6 million every year in South Dakota alone to market it’s deadly products to our families and our children. They aren’t just taking our money, they are taking our lives.

It has no chemicals, there’s nothing in there that a person can get addicted to other than prayer.

Jess Taken Alive,
Standing Rock Sioux Tribe

The equivalent of Christian sin in the Indian traditional sense is breaking ones commitment to the Pipe. When one prays with the Pipe, he is obliged to do it in a good way, not for evil purposes. The Pipe brings harmony between men when they smoke it. You can’t lie through the Pipe. To go against these things is a sin.

Richard Moves Camp,
(Lakota) – Pine Ridge

My son came home from Iraq. He went to the VA doctors and here they found cancer below his knee. It was devastating news and they were going to cut off his leg. He said, ‘What do you think?’ I said, ‘We have prayers. We have a way of life.’ So we went to ceremony and gave medicine (tobacco ties). We made them. We hung them up and everybody knew, all the friends that went to sweat and Sundance. They started praying and then I went to the Sundance tree and offered tobacco. And a week later, the doctor calls him and said you’re cancer free.